Your Favourite Performances from 1929 to present are...

[Bogie56]

Italy’s Nastro d’Argento Film Awards for 1965 were …

 

Best Actor

Nino Manfredi, Let’s Talk About Men

 

Best Actress

Giovanna Ralli, The Escape/La Fuga (64)

 

Best Supporting Actor

Ugo Tognazzi, I Knew Her Well

 

Best Supporting Actress

Sandra Milo, Juliet of the Spirits

 

——————————————————————————————

 

Held in the summer of 1996, Italy’s David di Donatello Awards for 1965 were …

 

Best Actors

Alberto Sordi, Smoke Over London (66)

 

Best Foreign Actor

Richard Burton, The Spy Who Came In From the Cold

 

Best Actress

Giulietta Masina, Juliet of the Spirits

 

Best Foreign Actress

Julie Andrews, The Sound of Music

[Bogie56]

Sweden’s Guldbagge Awards for 1965 were …

 

Best Actor

Jarl Kulle, Swedish Wedding Night (64)

 

Best Actress

Eva Dahlbeck, The Cats

[Bogie56]

Best Actor of 1965

 

3.  ORSON WELLES (Sir John “Jack” Falstaff), Chimes at Midnight

 

Thankfully, Chimes at Midnight has been restored recently and is available on BluRay.  It is Welles' favourite of his own films and for me it keeps getting better with each viewing.  Welles makes the quintessential Falstaff.

[skimpole]

Philip Kemp on Charulata for the Criterion collection:

 

Charulata: “Calm Without, Fire Within” By Philip Kemp

 

Charulata, often rated the director’s finest film—and the one that, when pressed, he would name as his own personal favorite: “It’s the one with the fewest flaws”—is adapted from Tagore’s 1901 novella Nastanirh (The Broken Nest). It’s widely believed that the story was inspired by Tagore’s relationship with his sister-in-law, Kadambari Devi, who committed suicide in 1884 for reasons that have never been fully explained. Kadambari, like Charulata, was beautiful, intelligent, and a gifted writer, and toward the end of his life, Tagore admitted that the hundreds of haunting portraits of women that he painted in his later years were inspired by memories of her.

 

....of all his chamber dramas, Charulata is perhaps the subtlest and most delicate. The setting, as with so many of Ray’s movies, is his native Kolkata. It’s around 1880, and the intellectual ferment of the Bengali Renaissance is at its height. Among the educated middle classes, there’s talk of self-determination for India within the British Empire—perhaps even complete independence. Such ideas are often aired in the Sentinel, the liberal English-language weekly of which Bhupatinath Dutta (Shailen Mukherjee) is the owner and editor. A kindly man, but distracted by his all-absorbing political interests, he largely leaves his wife, the graceful and intelligent Charulata (Madhabi Mukherjee), to her own resources.

 

The visual elegance and fluidity that Ray achieves in Charulata are immediately evident in the long, all-but-wordless sequence that follows the credits and shows us Charu, trapped in the stuffy, brocaded cage of her house, trying to amuse herself. (At this period, no respectable middle-class Bengali wife could venture out into the city alone.) Having called to the servant to take Bhupati his tea, she leafs through a book lying on the bed, discards it, selects another from the bookshelf—then, hearing noises outside in the street, finds her opera glasses and flits birdlike from window to window, watching the passersby. A street musician with his monkey, a chanting group of porters trotting with a palanquin, a portly Brahman with his black umbrella, signifier of his dignified status—all these come under her scrutiny. When Bhupati wanders past, barely a couple of feet away but too engrossed in a book to notice her, she turns her glasses on him as well—just another strange specimen from the intriguing, unattainable outside world.

 

Throughout this sequence, Ray’s camera unobtrusively follows Charu as she roams restlessly around the house, framing and reframing her in a series of spaces—doorways, corridors, pillared galleries—that emphasize both the Victorian-Bengali luxury of her surroundings and her confinement within them. Though subjective shots are largely reserved for Charu’s glimpses of street life, the tracking shots that mirror her progress along the gallery, or move in behind her shoulder as she glides from window to window, likewise give us the sense of sharing her comfortable but trammeled life. The only deviation from this pattern comes after she’s retrieved the opera glasses. A fast lateral track keeps the glasses in close-up as she holds them by her side and hurries back to the windows, the camera sharing her impulsive eagerness.

 

Under the credits, we’ve seen Charu embroidering a wreathed B on a handkerchief as a gift for her husband. When she presents it to him, Bhupati is delighted but asks, “When do you find the time, Charu?” Evidently, it’s never occurred to him that she might feel herself at a loose end. But now, becoming vaguely aware of Charu’s discontent and fearing she may be lonely, he invites her ne’er-do-well brother Umapada and his wife, Mandakini, to stay, offering Umapada employment as manager of the Sentinel’s finances. Manda, a featherheaded chatterbox, proves poor company for her sister-in-law. Then Bhupati’s young cousin Amal (Soumitra Chatterjee) unexpectedly arrives for a visit. Lively, enthusiastic, cultured, an aspiring writer, he establishes an immediate rapport with Charu that on both sides drifts insensibly toward love.

 

“Calm Without, Fire Within,” the title of Ray’s essay on the Japanese cinema, could apply equally well to Charulata (as the Bengali critic Chidananda Das Gupta has noted). The emotional turbulence that underlies the film is conveyed in hints and sidelong gestures, in a fleeting glance or a snatch of song, often betraying feelings only half recognized by the person experiencing them. In a key scene set in the sunlit garden (with more than a nod to Fragonard), Amal lies on his back on a mat, seeking inspiration, while Charu swings herself high above him, reveling in the ecstasy of her newfound intellectual and erotic stimulation. Ray, as the critic Robin Wood observed, “is one of the cinema’s great masters of interrelatedness.”

This garden scene, which runs some ten minutes, finds Ray at his most intimately lyrical. It’s the first time the action has escaped from the house, and the sense of freedom and release is infectious. From internal evidence, it’s clear that the scene involves more than one occasion (Charu promises Amal a personally designed notebook for his writings, she presents it to him, he declares that he’s filled it), but it’s cut together to give the impression of a single, continuous event, a seamless emotional crescendo. Two moments in particular attain a level of rapt intensity rarely equaled in Ray’s work, both underscored by music. The first is when Charu, having just exhorted Amal to write, swings back and forth, singing softly; Ray’s camera swings with her, holding her face in close-up, for nearly a minute. Then, when Amal finds inspiration, we get a montage of the Bengali writing filling his notebook, line superimposed upon line in a series of cross-fades, while sitar and shehnai gently hail his creativity.

In an article in Sight & Sound in 1982, Ray suggested that, to Western audiences, Charulata, with its triangle plot and Europeanized, Victorian ambience, might seem familiar territory, but that “beneath the veneer of familiarity, the film is chockablock with details to which [the Western viewer] has no access. Snatches of song, literary allusions, domestic details, an entire scene where Charu and her beloved Amal talk in alliterations . . . all give the film a density missed by the Western viewer in his preoccupation with plot, character, the moral and philosophical aspects of the story, and the apparent meaning of the images.”

 

 

...Ray was always known as a skilled and sympathetic director of actors. Saeed Jaffrey, who starred in The Chess Players (1977), bracketed him and John Huston as “gardener directors, who have selected the flowers, know exactly how much light and sun and water the flowers need, and then let them grow.” Soumitra Chatterjee, who made his screen debut when Ray cast him in the title role of the third film of The Apu Trilogy, The World of Apu (1959), gives perhaps the finest of his fifteen performances in Ray’s films as Amal—young, impulsive, a touch ridiculous in his irrepressible showing off, bursting with the joy of exploring life in its fullness after his release from the drab confines of a student hostel. He’s superbly matched by the graceful Madhabi Mukherjee as Charu, her expressive features alive with the ever-changing play of unaccustomed emotions that she scarcely knows how to identify, let alone deal with. She had starred in Ray’s previous film, The Big City (1963); he described her as “a wonderfully sensitive actress who made my work very easy for me.”

 

The other three main actors had also appeared in The Big City, though in minor roles. Shailen Mukherjee, playing Bhupati, was principally a stage actor; this was his first major screen role. Despite his professed inexperience (Ray recalled him saying, “Manikda [Ray’s nickname], I know nothing about film acting. I’ll be your pupil, you teach me”), he succeeds in making Bhupati a thoroughly likable if remote figure, well-intentioned but far too idealistic and trusting for his own good. Gitali Roy’s occasional veiled glances hint that Mandakini isn’t, perhaps, quite as empty-headed as Charu supposes; she certainly isn’t above flirting with Amal on her own account. As her husband, Umapada, Shyamal Ghosal expresses with his whole body language his envy and resentment of Bhupati—signals that his brother-in-law of course completely fails to pick up on...

[skimpole]

[Bogie56]

Japan’s Blue Ribbon Awards for 1965 were …

 

Best Actor

Toshiro Mifune, Red Beard

 

Best Actress

Ayako Wakao, Seisuke’s Wife and Nami Kage

 

Best Supporting Actor

Takahiro Tamura, Seisuke’s Wife and The Hoodlum Soldier

 

Best Supporting Actress

Terumi Niki, Red Beard

 

—————————————————————————————

 

Japan’s Mainichi Awards for 1965 were …

 

Best Actor

Rentaro Mikuni, A Fugitive From the Past and Nippon Dorobo Monogatari

 

Best Actress

Sachiko Hidari, A Fugitive From the Past

 

Best Supporting Actor

Junzaburo Ban, A Fugitive From the Past

 

Best Supporting Actress

Tomoko Naraoka, Shonin No Isu

[kingrat]

Chimes at Midnight has indeed been beautifully restored visually--the problems with the audio are probably beyond fixing--and looks great on the big screen. It's probably the best Kurosawa film not directed by Akira Kurosawa. The opening shot immediately made me think of Kurosawa, and the influence is felt not only in the battle scenes, but in the interiors of Mistress Quickly's inn, which look a good bit like the interiors of Yojimbo. It's interesting that Welles learned and assimilated so much from the Japanese director.

 

For me, the best performances are from Keith Baxter, an excellent Prince Hal; John Gielgud, who makes the most of every line Henry IV has; and Margaret Rutherford as Mistress Quickly. Jeanne Moreau is bizarrely cast as Doll Tearsheet. She and Marina Vlady are most attractive, but a more idiomatic grasp of English would have helped. Welles is physically right for Falstaff, and he has the useful Wellesian voice, but for me his interpretation is sometimes generic, without enough attention to a specific scene. Welles seems to have spent more time on the visual aspect of the film than on his own performance, which is not necessarily a bad thing, given the strength of the visuals. However, I would have sent Alan Webb's Justice Shallow to the gallows early in the film. Welles has a great fondness for irritating supporting performances that are allowed to run on and on, not only Alan Webb here, but Dennis Weaver in Touch of Evil, Glenn Anders in The Lady from Shanghai, and Akim Tamiroff in Mr. Arkadin, to name a few.

 

About the other Shakespearean film of 1965: I always think of it as the Olivier Othello, but Olivier didn't direct it, more's the pity. Stuart Burge directed what is essentially a film version of the stage production. I'm not complaining; too bad that more of the great Olivier, Gielgud, Richardson, Redgrave etc, performances weren't preserved on screen. Olivier learned to lower his voice an additional octave to play Othello. It would be worthwhile to watch the film simply to watch what Olivier is doing in each scene. Even if you don't think he's making the right choices, what he does is always interesting. Frank Finlay gets the class difference exactly right; this is just how I envision Iago. Maggie Smith makes a fine Desdemona. Despite her skill, Joyce Redman makes Emilia too middle class for my taste, too close in rank to Desdemona. An earthier Emilia can then surprise and move us when she rises to denounce Iago and Othello in the final act.

[Bogie56]

Here are the films from 1965 that were mentioned that I have not seen as yet. 

 

Alphaville with Eddie Constantine

Boeing, Boeing with Jerry Lewis, Tony Curtis and Thelma Ritter

The Brick and the Mirror with Zackaria Hashemi and Taji Ahmadi

Brainstorm with Viveca Lindfors

Casanova 70 with Marcello Mastroianni

The Cats/Kattorna with Eva Dahlbeck

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! with Tura Satana and Stuart Lancaster

Father of a Soldier with Sergo Zakariadze

A Fugitive From the Past with Rentaro Mikuni, Sachiko Hidari and Junzaburo Ban

The Golden Thread/Subarmarekha with Madhabi Mukherjee

Good Neighbor Sam with Jack Lemmon

Harlow with Red Buttons

The Hoodlum Soldier with Takahiro Tamura

How to Murder Your Wife with Jack Lemmon

I am Twenty with Valentin Popov

I Knew Her Well with Ugo Tognazzi

La Grosse Caisse with Bourvil

Le Bonheur with Jaen-Claude Drouot, Claire Drouot and Marie-France Boyer

Let’s Talk About Men with Nino Manfredi

The Loves of a Blonde with Hana Brejchova

Marriage on the Rocks with Dean Martin, Deborah Kerr and Cesar Romero

Nami Kage with Ayako Wakao

Nightmare Castle with Barbara Steele

Nippon Dorobo Monogatari with Rentaro Mikuni

Nothing But a Man with Ivan Dixon

Return form the Ashes with Ingrid Thulin

The Saragossa Manuscript with Zbigniew Sybulski

The Shameless Old Lady with Sylvie

Shonin no Isu with Tomoko Naraoka

Simon of the Desert with Claudio Brook

Sisuke’s Wife with Ayako Wakao and Takahiro Tamura

The Sucker with Bourvil

Sword of the Beast with Maikijiro Hiro

Three Rooms In Manhattan with Annie Giradot

 

 

And I would like to see this again …

 

Beach Blanket Bingo for Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello and Paul Lynde

[LawrenceA]

Here are the films from 1965 that were mentioned that I have not seen as yet. 

 

Alphaville with Eddie Constantine

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! with Tura Satana and Stuart Lancaster

Good Neighbor Sam with Jack Lemmon

How to Murder Your Wife with Jack Lemmon

The Loves of a Blonde with Hana Brejchova

Nightmare Castle with Barbara Steele

Sword of the Beast with Maikijiro Hiro

 

I've seen these, Bogie. How to Murder Your Wife and Good Neighbor Sam are typical mid-60's comedies. Your enjoyment will be determined by your tastes for such. I liked both okay, but preferred the latter.

 

Nightmare Castle is a typical example of the Italian Gothic horror films that were popular in the 1960's. Barbara Steele, the queen of such movies, gets to play a dual role. There's mad science experiments, love triangles, betrayals, and a good time for fans of the genre.

 

Loves of a Blonde was part of the Czech New Wave of films, this one directed by Milos Forman. Recommended.

 

Alphaville is Godard's noir SF, with Eddie Constantine as Lemmy Caution, an American agent in a dystopian future sent to the title location to investigate. This is more accessible than Godard's overt polemics, but it's still weird enough to satisfy his usual fans. I enjoy it more than most of his, probably due to the genre.

 

Faster, Pusscat! Kill! Kill! is very fun trash, and proud of it. Tura Satana tears up the screen as the leader of a girl gang of go-go dancers that go on a kidnap and murder spree, just for the hell of it. Stuart Lancaster, a regular in director Russ Meyer's films, plays the Old Man, and he gets to give a good speech. Highly recommended!

 

Sword of the Beast would be my top choice, though. A disgraced samurai flees into the mountains, encountering a farmer that enlists him in a plan to steal gold from the shogunate's gold mines. There are surprise revelations, as well as other characters that are pursuing the samurai, but most of that should be left to viewing. Allowing the story to progress with little knowledge is a plus for this film.

[LawrenceA]

Here are the 1965 films I have not seen (**** denotes films I have recorded but have not watched):

 

Boeing Boeing

Brainstorm

The Brick and the Mirror

Casanova 70

The Cats

Charulata

Chimes At Midnight****

Father of a Soldier

The First Teacher

A Fugitive From the Past

Harlow

The Hoodlum Soldier

I Am Twenty

I Knew Her Well

The Ipcress File****

The Knack

La Grosse Caisse

Le Bonheur

Let's Talk About Men

Lord Jim

Marriage On the Rocks****

Nami Kage

Never Too Late

Nippon Dorobo Monogatari

Nothing But a Man

Operation Crossbow

Return From the Ashes

Sandra/Of a Thousand Delights

The Saragossa Manuscript

Seisuke's Wife

Shakespeare Wallah

The Shameless Old Lady

Shonin No Isu

Simon of the Desert****

The Slender Thread

A Study In Terror

Subarnarekha

The Sucker

Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines

Three Rooms In Manhattan

Viva Maria!

Von Ryan's Express****

The Wild Seed

[Bogie56]

Here are the 1965 films I have not seen (**** denotes films I have recorded but have not watched):

 

Charulata

Chimes At Midnight****

The Ipcress File****

The Knack

Lord Jim

Never Too Late

Operation Crossbow

Sandra/Of a Thousand Delights

Shakespeare Wallah

The Slender Thread

Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines

Viva Maria!

Von Ryan's Express****

The Wild Seed

 

Charulata is actually a 1964 film and showed up in my lists there.  It is another very good Satyajit Ray film.

Out of the bunch that I've seen I would have to go with Chimes at Midnight all the way.  It's bold style makes up for any technical deficiencies Welles had to put up with because of his budget.  And I beg to differ with kingrat in that I don't feel Welles' depiction of the Battle of Shrewsbury is influenced much if not at all by Kurosawa.  Kurosawa's army battles always have a formality about them which is quite Japanese.  Welles gets right in close to the participants with flash cutting, hand held cameras in a very chaotic modernistic approach which may have been born of budgetary concerns.  If it has its influences I would say Eisenstein.  But there is lots of mud and it is B&W.

I wasn't such a big fan of the film the first time I saw it but it has grown on me as has the source material which is primarily Henry IV Parts One and Two.

I think the TCM copy of Chimes was pretty good but I don't know if it was the same as the recently restored release to BluRay.

Edited October 13, 2016 by Bogie56

[Bogie56]

Before we hit 1966 I would like to mention that I am going with 1967 for the full 4 part version of Bondarchuk’s War and Peace.  The imdb lists it as a 1966 film but as wikipedia points out the film was originally released in four parts: two in 1966 and the last two in 1967.  So, I am happy to wait until 1967 to mention some of its performances.

 

[Kay]

1965 - Not the longest list, but there are a handful of real favorites here. If I didn't stop myself I might never stop naming performances from The Loved One, right down to Liberace.
 

Actor

Lee Marvin - Cat Ballou***

Terence Stamp - The Collector

Jason Robards - A Thousand Clowns

James Stewart - Flight of the Phoenix
Robert Morse - The Loved One

 

Actress

Anjanette Comer - The Loved One****
Catherine Deneuve - Repulsion

 

Supporting Actor

Rod Steiger - The Loved One****
Barry Gordon - A Thousand Clowns (juvenile)
Gene Saks - A Thousand Clowns

Hardy Kruger - Flight of the Phoenix
Akim Tamiroff - Alphaville

Jonathan Winters - The Loved One

Reginald Denny - Cat Ballou

Wallace Ford - A Patch of Blue

 

Supporting Actress
 

Ayllene Gibbons - The Loved One***

Shelley Winters - A Patch of Blue
Valentina Cortese - Juliet of the Spirits

Barbara Harris - A Thousand Clowns

[kingrat]

Concerning a few of the films that have been mentioned:

 

Simon of the Desert is one of my favorite Bunuel films, and it's only about 45 minutes long. Definitely worth a watch.

 

I liked Shakespeare Wallah better when I saw it in college than when I saw it again a few years ago, but this story of a traveling Shakespeare troupe in India, an early film by James Ivory, is certainly worth a look.

 

Visconti's Sandra (Vaghe stelle dell' orse) is hard to find, and the online site where I saw it is now gone. It may be available on YouTube. Nicely photographed in black and white, it recounts the story of a young woman (the lovely Claudia Cardinale) who cannot escape her possessive brother, even after her marriage to an Englishman. It might especially be recommended to those who find some of Visconti's more ambitious films too long and slow. Sandra is a much tighter film, like Visconti's adaptation of Camus' The Stranger.

 

The Ipcress File, directed by Sidney J. Furie, was another of the films that propelled Michael Caine to stardom. The very flashy and aggressively directed style created something of a sensation at the time, but some find it dated. Michael Caine, a spy story, swinging England--I'd say it's worth a try.

 

When I commented online that The Knack looks awfully dated, another poster made the valid point that the datedness of it is precisely what's most interesting about it. Richard Lester made a freewheeling adaptation of a popular play by Ann Jellicoe. All the directorial tricks that made it look new then seem old hat now. Very much "swinging England," and gosh, how I wanted to go there. Remember "dolly birds"? You'll see a lot of them in this movie. Rita Tushingham and Michael Crawford are among the stars.

 

If you didn't know that William Conrad had ever directed a film, neither did I. Brainstorm is a belated film noir. Some noir enthusiasts rate it more highly than I do. I've always liked Viveca Lindfors, who plays a psychiatrist here.

[CoraSmith]

The Sucker (Le Corniaud) was the first of two collaborations between Louis de Funès and Bourvil, directed by Gérard Oury. This comical duo was based on a contrast: Bourvil was the naive and simple guy, while De Funès was the opportunist who tried to manipulate things. In this case Léopold Saroyan (De Funès) convinces Antoine Maréchal (Bourvil) to drive a Cadillac from Italy to France. Maréchal is unaware that the car is filled with diamonds. This story works because of the dramatic irony. You would like to warn Maréchal that he's dealing with a bunch of smugglers. The French title is hard to translate. Le Corniaud means the gullible person (the gull). Maréchal is naive and trusts everybody, but he's not stupid.

 

A Study in Terror is a Sherlock Holmes film not based on a A. C. Doyle story. It's about Jack the Ripper, who was active in that era in London. John Neville and Donald Houston are one of the better attemps to bring Holmes and Watson to the screen. Robert Morley plays Holmes' smarter brother Mycroft, Barbara Windsor one of the victims. The young Judi Dench has a small part too. It's not for Holmes purists, but it's a pleasant watch because of the great cast and a decent script. 

 

Boeing Boeing is a play adaptation with Tony Curtis, Jerry Lewis and Thelma Ritter. It's a translation of a French comedy by Marc Camelotti. It's one of those rare cases of a 20th century play that's better known than its film version. It's one of those old-fashioned farces about a man who gets tangled in a web of lies, misunderstandings and coincidences. Bernard Lawrence (Tony Curtis) has three girlfriends at the same time. Each is a stewardess from a different country. Each has a different flying schedule, so nothing can go wrong... Until things start going wrong. Thelma Ritter has another of her character roles as the housekeeper. Jerry Lewis plays a friend of Tony who invades his life and complicates matters even further.

[kingrat]

Before we move on from 1965, I ought to mention the performance at the top of my list for this year, from the film that is at the top of the list for this year: James Fox in King Rat. I believe that Bogie agrees on both counts.

 

In the early to middle 1960s, James Fox had the lock on playing young upper class Englishmen, the kind who were educated at one of the top public schools (Eton or Harrow) and then on to university at Oxford or Cambridge. In The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner he has the small role of the public school's best runner, and thus the rival of Tom Courtenay as the best at reform school. His character is sympathetic enough, but of course our real sympathies are with Courtenay.

 

In The Servant James Fox plays the master, except that the point of the film is that the servant becomes the master. For Joseph Losey (and perhaps Harold Pinter, who adapted the script from a Robin Maugham novel) the aristocracy is weak and corrupt, and the weakness of the master symbolizes the weakness of the entire class. Fox plays the weakness and corruption without our completely despising him, though Dirk Bogarde has the showier role and makes the most of his opportunity.

 

Because Fox and Courtenay bring up such strong class resonances, their casting in King Rat is perfect. Now Fox has the sympathetic role, showing us the virtues of his class at their best, whereas Courtenay shows us the dark side of this working class man, full of spite and envy, absolutely right when he denounces the corruption of the officers, yet inevitably going too far.

 

Much of King Rat is shown from the viewpoint of Marlowe, Fox's character, who becomes fascinated by the one prisoner in the camp who seems to know how to get things done, Corporal King (George Segal, also perfectly cast). I don't believe he's identified as a New Yorker, but Segal as Cpl. King is the essence of the streetwise New Yorker who knows how to manipulate every kind of system, legal and illegal, even a Japanese prison camp, for his own benefit and sometimes for the benefit of others. Marlowe has never met anyone like this.

 

James Fox doesn't have the kind of showy scenes which often win awards for an actor, with lots of emotional outbursts, for that isn't the way Marlowe was brought up. Instead of speeches which proclaim various moral values, Fox's reactions let us know clearly enough of his amazement at King's behavior, the way he is drawn into King's circle and King's schemes, and the kind of moral compromises he himself is willing to make to survive. It would be almost true to say that our moral guide to the complex world of the film is James Fox's face. Because of Fox and the rest of the great cast, writer and director Bryan Forbes can always imply rather than state, knowing that the actors will make everything clear to the attentive viewer.

 

George Segal is one of those unusual actors who are attractive enough to play romantic leads yet blend perfectly into an ensemble. (Think of how Paul Newman or Steve McQueen would have upset the balance of King Rat had one of them played King.) If Segal didn't quite have the career as a leading man that briefly seemed possible, he has had a long and successful career as a character actor.

 

 

 

 

[Bogie56]

Best Actor of 1965

 

1.  JAMES FOX (Flight Lieutenant Peter Marlowe, RAF), King Rat

[Bogie56]

Leading vs. Supporting Categories in 1966 …

 

I think Alan Arkin rightfully belongs in the supporting actor category for The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming.  He disappears from the story too often into the ensemble.  Carl Reiner is arguably the only lead.

Walter Matthau as Whiplash Willie in The Fortune Cookie is a hair away from being a co-lead.  Though he steals the picture the last time I saw this I determined it was still a supporting role.

 

[Bogie56]

It’s time for 1966.  We will be on 1966 for one week so plenty of time for everyone to respond.

 

Here are Oscar’s choices for 1966.  Winners in bold. 

 

Best Actor

 

Paul Scofield, A Man For All Seasons* 

Alan Arkin, The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming

Richard Burton, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Michael Caine, Alfie

Steve McQueen, The Sand Pebbles

 

Best Actress

 

Elizabeth Taylor, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?* 

Anouk Aimee, A Man and a Woman

Ida Kaminska, The Shop on Main Street (65)

Lynn Redgrave, Georgy Girl

Vanessa Redgrave, Morgan: A Suitable Case For Treatment

 

Best Supporting Actor

 

Walter Matthau, The Fortune Cookie*

Mako, The Sand Pebbles

James Mason, Georgy Girl

George Segal, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Robert Shaw, A Man For All Seasons 

 

Best Supporting Actress

 

Sandy Dennis, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?*  

Wendy Hiller, A Man For All Seasons

Jocelyn LeGarde, Hawaii

Vivien Merchant, Alfie

Geraldine Page, You’re a Big Boy Now

[Bogie56]

My choice for the Juvenile Acting award for 1966 is…

 

Sheldon Golomb (Pete Whittaker), The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming

 

[LawrenceA]

1966

 

I had a hard time coming up with nominees in both of the actress categories this year. The supporting actor category, usually one of the strongest for me, was also a bit weak this year. A couple of my choices are personal favorites that will probably cause more than a few eye rolls. My choice for winner is one of my favorite performances of the decade, as it is so bad in every respect that it becomes a work of art unto itself. I hope no one thinks I'm disrespecting the process with this choice, as it really is my favorite of the year.

 

BEST ACTOR

Richard Burton  Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?****

Tatsuya Nakadai  Sword of Doom

Paul Scofield  A Man for All Seasons

Tatsuya Nakadai  The Face of Another

James Coburn  Our Man Flint

Eli Wallach  The Good, the Bad & the Ugly

Steve McQueen  The Sand Pebbles

Michael Caine  Alfie

Rock Hudson  Seconds

Vaclav Neckar  Closely Watched Trains

Paul Newman  Harper

Oskar Werner  Fahrenheit 451

Max Von Sydow  Hawaii

 

BEST ACTRESS

Elizabeth Taylor  Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf****

Lynn Redgrave  Georgy Girl

Cheng Pei-pei  Come Drink with Me

Liv Ullmann  Persona

Julie Christie  Fahrenheit 451

Vanessa Redgrave  Blow-Up

Claudia Cardinale  The Professionals

Anouk Aimee  A Man and a Woman

 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

John Reynolds  Manos, the Hands of Fates****

Alan Arkin  The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming

Robert Shaw  A Man for All Seasons

John Huston  The Bible

Toshiro Mifune  Sword of Doom

Cesar Romero  Batman: The Movie

Jonathan Winters  The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming

 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Vivien Merchant  Alfie****

Wendy Hiller  A Man for All Seasons

Sandy Dennis  Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Charlotte Rampling  Georgy Girl

Joan Hackett  The Group

 

BEST JUVENILE PERFORMANCE

None

[Bogie56]

Here are my choices of the 105 films I've seen from 1966 for…

 

Best Supporting Actress of 1966

 

1.  SANDY DENNIS (Honey), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

2.  JOCELYN LAGARDE (Alii Nui Malama/”Ruth”), Hawaii

3.  MARAYAT ANDRIANE (Maily), The Sand Pebbles

4.  JULIA FOSTER (Gilda/"Mrs. Elkins"), Alfie

5.  SIMONE SIGNORET (Elsa Fennon), The Deadly Affair

 

6.  VIVIEN MERCHANT (Lily Clamacraft), Alfie

7.  BEULAH QUO (Mama Chunk), The Sand Pebbles

8.  SHELLEY WINTERS (Ruby), Alfie

9.  WENDY HILLER (Alice More), A Man For All Seasons

10. JULIE HARRIS (Miss Nora Thing), You're a Big Boy Now

 

and ...

 

HARRIET ANDERSSON (Ann “Anna” Dobbs), The Deadly Affair

TESSIE O’SHEA (Alice Foss), The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming

FRANCOISE CHRISTOPHE (“the Duchess”), King of Hearts

JULIE HARRIS (Betty Fraley), Harper

GENEVIEVE BUJOLD (Coquelicot), King of Hearts

SUSANNAH YORK (Margaret More), A Man For All Seasons

CLAUDIA CARDINALE (Mrs. Maria Grant), The Professionals

GERALDINE PAGE (Margery Chanticleer), You're a Big Boy Now

CICELY COURTNEIDGE (Major Martha), The Wrong Box

CLARE KELLY (Doris Parkin), Georgy Girl

[Bogie56]

Here are my choices of the 105 films I've seen from 1966 for…

 

Best Supporting Actor of 1966

 

1.  MAKO (Po-han), The Sand Pebbles

2.  GEORGE SEGAL (Nick), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

3.  RICHARD CRENNA (Lieutenant Collins), The Sand Pebbles

4.  ROBERT SHAW (King Henry VIII), A Man For All Seasons 

5.  VICTOR MATURE (Tony Powell), After the Fox

 

6.  SIMON OAKLAND (Machinist’s Mate Stawski), The Sand Pebbles

7.  RALPH RICHARDSON (Joseph Finsbury), The Wrong Box

8.  WALTER MATTHAU (William H. "Whiplash Willie" Gingrich), The Fortune Cookie

9.  ALAN ARKIN (Lt. Yuri Rozanov), The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming

10.  JAMES MASON (James Leamington), Georgy Girl

 

and...

 

   JOHN MILLS (Masterman Finsbury), The Wrong Box

JOHN RANDOLPH (Arthur Hamilton/“Mr. Wilson”), Seconds

JACK GILFORD (Hysterium), A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

ROBERT MITCHUM (Sheriff J.P. Harrah), El Dorado

ORSON WELLES (Cardinal Wolsey), A Man For All Seasons

RALPH BELLAMY (Joe Grant), The Professionals

RICHARD ATTENBOROUGH (Machinist’s Mate 2nd Class “Frenchy” Burgoyne), The Sand Pebbles

MAXIMILIAN SCHELL (Dieter Frey), The Deadly Affair 

PETER COOK (Morris Finsbury), The Wrong Box

JACK MACGOWRAN (Albert/”Albie”), Cul-De-Sac

JOHN MILLS (Ezra Fitton), The Family Way

LEO MCKERN (Thomas Cromwell), A Man For All Seasons

JACK PALANCE (Jesus Raza), The Professionals

HARRY ANDREWS (Inspector Mendel), The Deadly Affair

PETER SELLERS (Dr. Pratt), The Wrong Box

LEE VAN CLEEF (Setenza/"Angel Eyes"), The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

PAUL FORD (C.P. Ballinger), A Big Hand For the Little Lady

JOHN HURT (Richard Rich), A Man For All Seasons

WILL GEER (“Old Man”), Seconds

ARTHUR HUNNICUTT (Bull Harris), El Dorado

SHELDON GOLOMB (Pete Whittaker), The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming 

CHRISTOPHER GEORGE (Nelse McLeod), El Dorado

[Swithin]

1966 Favorites

 

Best Actor

 

Alan Bates (Georgy Girl)

Richard Burton (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf)

Zero Mostel (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum)

Paul Scofield (A Man for all Seasons)

David Warner (Morgan)

 

Best Actress

 

Bibi Andersson (Persona)

Mbissine Therese Diop (Black Girl)

Virginia McKenna (Born Free)

Lynn Redgrave (Georgy Girl)

Elizabeth Taylor (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf)

 

Best Supporting Actor

 

Robert Emhardt (The Group)

Jack Gilford (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum)

Marne Maitland (The Reptile)

Jean Martin (The Battle of Algiers)

James Mason (Georgy Girl)

 

Best Supporting Actress

 

Francoise Dorleac (Cul-de-sac)

Wendy Hiller (A Man for all Seasons)

Shirley Knight (The Group)

Kate Reid (This Property Is Condemned)

Kathleen Widdoes (The Group)

 

Best Musical Scenes

 

Musical montage at the opening of The Group

Peter Orlovsky and Allen Ginsberg playing Ravi Shankar’s music (Chappaqua)

"Everybody Ought to Have a Maid" (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum)

"Finnigan’s Wake” (Passages from James Joyce’s Finnigans Wake)

 

Best Line

 

“Gangsters have stolen my secret recipe for egg salad. And not only that: they kill, they maim, and they call information for numbers they could easily look up in the book.” (What’s Up Tiger Lily?)

[TomJH]

My picks for 1966, a second consecutive year of little in the way of films that inspire me.

 

BEST ACTOR

 

Richard Burton, WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?

Paul Scofield, MAN FOR ALL SEASONS

Michael Caine, ALFIE

John Randolph, SECONDS

Steve McQueen, SAND PEBBLES

 

Honourable Mention: Charlton Heston in Khartoum, Burt Lancaster in The Professionals, Lee Marvin in The Professionals, Rock Hudson in Seconds, Marlon Brando in The Chase.

 

BEST ACTRESS

 

Elizabeth Taylor, WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?

Lynn Redgrave, GEORGY GIRL

Joanne Woodward, A FINE MADNESS

Audrey Hepburn, HOW TO STEAL A MILLION

 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

 

Peter Sellers, THE WRONG BOX

Robert Shaw, MAN FOR ALL SEASONS

Richard Attenborough, SAND PEBBLES

George Segal, WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?

Walter Matthau, FORTUNE COOKIE

 

Honourable Mention: Ralph Richardson in The Wrong Box, John Mills in The Wrong Box, Brian Keith in The Rare Breed, John Huston in The Bible, Jack Palance in The Professionals, Laurence Olivier in Khartoum.

 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

 

Sandy Dennis, WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?

Vivien Merchant, ALFIE

Shelley Winters, ALFIE

 

Best Sport of the Year Award

 

Victor Mature for his self spoof in After the Fox

 

Best Zinger Comeback of the Year Award

 

The Professionals

 

Ralph Bellamy: "You bastard!"

 

Lee Marvin: "Yes, sir, in my case, an accident of birth. But you, sir, you are a self made man."